Dark Dawn (6 page)

They came out with over a hundred quid. Petesy’d bought his granny a box of chocolates but she wouldn’t take them as she thought they were nicked. They blew the rest on a two-day bender. White Lightning and a load of Es. Steako and Micky came round and they all got fucked. Marty and Petesy were like kings, doling out the goods. It was brilliant.

After a few weeks the students started asking if they could get them other things. Speed. Coke. The first time they took coke into the Holy Lands they doubled their takings.

Marty bought a mobile phone. He used it to text birds to try and get his hole.
Hey drln. Cnt stp thnkng abt u. Wt u up to later. MTxxx
He would scroll through and send the same message to six different girls.

‘You gotta be in it to win it, Petesy.’

Round the back of the twenty-four-hour Maxol was where they counted their takings. Petesy stood up and started trying to do keepy-ups with an empty can of Club Orange.

‘We need to calm ourselves, Marty. Locksy was telling me that Tierney and Molloy are out looking for us. Someone said they were the ones that done that boy down at the river.’

‘Nobody knows who the fuck that guy is.’

‘It doesn’t matter. He’s dead, isn’t he?’

‘That’s his fucking problem. Grow a dick, will you, Petesy. Sometimes I feel like I’m out here working with a wee girl.’

‘I’m just saying, I don’t want to end up limping round on a pair of walking sticks.’

Petesy managed two keepy-ups before the can clattered to the ground.

‘Aye.’ Marty nodded. ‘It would ruin your chances with Man United and all.’

Marty stood up and started walking. He shouted back, over his shoulder, ‘Come on, Beckham. Let’s go and find that Cara one. Apparently Sean McAteer got a go at her tits at a party last Saturday.’

The sleeping tablets only half-worked. Lynch looked at the clock. 3.42 a.m.

He lay in bed, his thoughts going back to what the psychologist had said. As much as he hated the plush furniture and the rooftop views, Burton had been right. He could have gotten sleeping pills from anywhere. He was right about the memory as well – the taste, the smell, the metal. Lynch began to wonder what else Burton might know.

After the appointment he’d walked round the town for two hours. He’d tried to go for a pint in the Kitchen but it wasn’t there any more. It had been knocked down and was a building site for a new shopping centre that would stretch half the length of Victoria Street. At home Lynch lay in front of the TV, flicking between programmes. The choice was between cooking and DIY. Some chef ran round a kitchen telling people to fuck off every ten seconds. On the other channel people were renovating some house they’d bought, plotting how to make their millions on the property market. At half ten Lynch had had enough. He popped two pills and went to bed.

Awake at four in the morning, Lynch went downstairs to make a cup of tea. There was no milk. He thought about taking it black, before dismissing the idea. On the small table lay a job application, staring up at him accusingly. The work was on a building site that needed labourers. Lynch had filled in his name and address. For a moment he’d felt lifted, like he was getting somewhere, even just putting pen to paper. It wasn’t long before he came unstuck. There were large blank boxes:
Previous Experience, Employment History, References.
He wondered what he was supposed to do with them.

Lynch went through to the lounge and lay down on the sofa. There was an old black-and-white war film on TV. American GIs were trying to capture an island from the Japs. The soldiers were cleanshaven and wore neatly pressed uniforms. It was war as it was supposed to be. Well ordered. Us and them. When guys got shot they threw their arms in the air and fell over. There was no blood, no screaming, no pleading for their lives. There was no one begging to be let off, telling you to wise up, that they had a wife, that they had kids, please . . . Television had a lot to answer for, thought Lynch. He turned the volume low in the hope that he might doze off.

At 8.15 he awoke and put his jacket on to go out for milk. As Lynch stuck his head out of the door he noticed there had been a break in the rain. The next shower didn’t seem far away though. Across the street a young girl was struggling to squeeze a buggy out of her front door. When Lynch couldn’t sleep he had watched her silhouette, pacing the floor at all hours of the morning. She was slim with bobbed blonde hair. The make-up did a good job of covering the shadows under her eyes. Lynch hadn’t seen any sign of the father in the two months he’d been in the Markets. He jogged over and held the gate open for her as she steered the pram through.

‘Thanks. It’s like driving a frigging tank, this thing.’

‘How old is the wee one?’

‘Five months.’

‘He’s cute.’

‘He’s a she.’

‘Oh. Sorry.’ Lynch raised his eyebrows. ‘What’s her name?’

‘Ciara.’

The two of them walked in silence for a few yards. She was on her way to the Health Centre. Lynch knew her routine. He knew the routine of almost everyone on the street. He couldn’t help it. Memorizing people, their habits, their movements. The girl went to the Health Centre every Thursday. On Mondays and Fridays her mother came, just after nine, to clean the house and help with the child. There was no father, at least none that had been anywhere near the house. Lynch feigned ignorance.

‘So where yous off to now then?’

‘Health Visitor. Nosy cow. It’s like being under surveillance. If you don’t go and see them, they think you’re killing your own child.’

‘Still,’ Lynch said. ‘It can’t be easy.’

‘Tell me about it.’

‘Is her da not around to help out?’

‘Her da’s an arsehole. Frigged off when he found out I was pregnant. Wanted an abortion. And before you start, I’m not like the rest of those wee girls, getting pregnant to get myself a house and all that. I was working before I had her.’

Lynch didn’t reply.

‘Anyway. It’s just as well he frigged off. Couldn’t have handled the lack of sleep. I’m up half the night.’

‘Don’t start me off,’ Lynch said, rolling his eyes. ‘Who would have thought getting a bit of kip could be so difficult?’

‘You tried gin? Works for me every time.’

Lynch laughed. The girl smiled at him sidewards, enjoying a bit of adult company.

‘A right pair of zombies, we must look,’ he joked.

‘Hey, speak for yourself, mate.’

Lynch smiled. It was good to be out walking, talking to someone, doing something normal. He introduced himself. Her name was Marie-Therese. He wondered about asking her if she fancied a cup of tea or something. A café somewhere. After she got done with the Health Visitor.

At the end of the street two men leaned against a parked car. As Lynch and the girl approached they got up and stood shoulder-to-shoulder, blocking the pavement. Lynch had never spoken to either of them, but he knew Tierney and Molloy by sight and reputation. The girl started to speak.

‘So what are you—’

‘Listen, love, you head on there. I’ll catch you later.’

The girl looked up and recognized the two men. She immediately stopped talking and put her head down, pushing the buggy onwards. The men parted to let her pass, looking her up and down, like she was something they might eat. Molloy spoke.

‘A bit young for an old fucker like you, don’t you think? Now a good-looking guy like me . . .’

Lynch didn’t respond. He kept his hands in his pockets, sizing up Molloy and Tierney. Molloy was the bigger of the two of them. He knew he could put Tierney down pretty quickly, then concentrate on the other one. He couldn’t tell yet if they were holding. If they were it was a different story altogether.

‘Mr McCann has sent for you.’ Molloy gestured at a grey Ford, parked at the kerb. ‘Get in the car.’

‘I don’t think so,’ Lynch said.

He didn’t move. He stared at Molloy, seeing that he was calling the shots.

‘Listen, Clint Eastwood.’ Tierney chipped in. ‘We’re not asking you. Get in the fucking car.’

‘I’ve nothing to say to McCann.’

‘We don’t give a fuck what you’ve got to say.’ Tierney had a mouth on him. Molloy was more deliberate, weighing things up.

Lynch didn’t move. They weren’t holding. If they were, they’d have shown something by now.

‘You might have moved into the Markets with Hughesy,’ Tierney continued, ‘and you might have done your time together. The big heroes. Up in the Maze. The Cause and all that.’

Lynch half-listened to Tierney, keeping his eyes fixed on Molloy.

‘You see, Hughesy’s gone, he’s not here any more. And when
he
goes, so does your pass for the Markets.’

Lynch had known this was coming. Tierney was doing all the talking, but it was Molloy that counted. He was the one to worry about.

‘You need to come and see Mr McCann,’ Molloy said. ‘Need to have a chat with him. There are no freeloaders here. Everyone has to earn their keep.’

‘I’m retired.’

‘Retired!’ Tierney exclaimed. ‘Away and fuck yourself. Retired? Don’t make me laugh.’

Tierney was a slabber all right, but Lynch had heard the stories and knew he could back it up. Meanwhile, Molloy was trying to do the same thing Lynch had done earlier: figure out if he was carrying.

Lynch took his hands out of his pockets. With his right hand he reached round into the belt at the small of his back. There was nothing there, but Lynch kept his hand hidden, holding on to the leather.

Molloy saw it and his eyes narrowed. He knew the stories, knew that Lynch had several bodies on him. The Lynch Man. The Lyncher. Molloy knew he wouldn’t hesitate, wouldn’t shirk at putting a bullet into either of them. Lynch found himself sliding into character. The passive face, the eyes taking on an empty, hollow stare. Molloy looked at him. He thought he was bluffing, but he couldn’t be sure.

‘Come on, Tierney,’ Molloy said, putting his hand on his partner’s shoulder. ‘This one’ll keep.’

The two men turned and went towards their car. Tierney was still slabbering.

‘I’d go out and buy a lottery ticket if I was you, Lynch. ’Cause I’ll tell you, this must be your lucky day or something.’

The two men got into the car and drove off, leaving Lynch standing by the kerb.

After weeks of anticipation, weeks of waiting, weeks of wondering, it had begun. Lynch sighed, feeling some of the tension flow out of him. It had started. At least he knew that now.

O’Neill sat at his desk in Musgrave Street, hunched over the Laganview file. He flicked through the pages. Paperwork. The holy commandment of police work. Thou shalt not shit without filling out a form. Paperwork covered the cracks. It meant you followed procedure. It was management’s way of keeping an eye on you. Their way of staying in the loop. O’Neill wondered what the world looked like from the third floor. Dunking biscuits into cups of tea, flicking through pages of neatly typed reports.

It had been three days since the body turned up and there was a thick file on Laganview. There were interviews, canvassing reports, a list of site workers, criminal records, known drug dealers, SOCO reports, evidence slips, statements, photographs, lab tests. There was nothing like a body for generating a paper trail. The tree huggers would have a field day, O’Neill thought. He imagined the headline:
Murder Bad For Environment.

For all the paperwork though, they still didn’t have a name.

The appeal for information had been repeated on TV throughout Tuesday and Wednesday. The
Belfast Telegraph
led with the story on Monday night. It had fronted radio bulletins throughout the week. Still they had nothing. It made no sense. Absolutely none.

At the press conference Wilson had looked the part. Reassuring the public. ‘No stone unturned . . . most horrific crime . . . perpetrators to justice.’ All the usual. Tell them what they want to hear. There was no talk of a punishment beating. The press had been kept well away from the scene and the state of the body hadn’t been disclosed.

For two days Musgrave Street flexed its muscle. Uniform stopped kids on street corners. CID lifted anyone with half a history of drug involvement. Jackie McManus, Micky Moran, Johnny Tierney, Stevie Davie, Sean Molloy. All the local celebrities.

They sat in interview rooms. Bored, inconvenienced and mildly amused, watching the police flounder.

‘Where were you last Sunday night?’

Silence.

‘Who were you with?’

Silence.

‘What time did you get home?’

Silence.

These guys didn’t even bother to ‘no comment’. They knew what was going on, knew the peelers were stirring the pot. It was what you did when a body showed up. The cops kicked the hornets’ nest. McManus, Moran, Tierney . . . they’d been questioned often enough to know that this time, the police really did have fuck all.

O’Neill had called the Royal Victoria Hospital on the Grosvenor Road. The hospital boasted the best knee surgeons in the world. In thirty years they’d had plenty of practice. He spoke to the head of orthopaedics and got the files sent over of every punishment beating in Belfast in the last eight years. There were 308. Where did you begin? O’Neill asked the hospital to keep him informed if any new victims came in, particularly if they were local.

He frowned at the open pages of the Laganview folder. How could the kid still not have a name? There was no Missing Person report. His prints were nowhere on the Police National Computer, which meant he didn’t have a record.

‘How many wee hoods are there,’ O’Neill muttered to himself, ‘that have never been arrested, not even once?’ He stared at the six digits on the manila folder. 880614. That’s what the kid was. A number. At this stage, it was all he was.

In the next room DI Ward looked into the empty space in front of his desk. He was thinking about his retirement. What the hell was he going to do? He had no family any more, except for a brother in Scotland. He and Maureen had planned to have kids but it just had never happened for them. He didn’t know why. Maureen blamed herself. She turned to him one night, told him that if he wanted to leave her, she would understand. Ward couldn’t believe what he heard. Couldn’t believe it had affected her so much, that she was that down about it. He tried to make it a joke.